Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lorne who wrote (23781)	12/3/1998 6:59:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116764

Russia must get rid of IMF shackles - Duma speaker 05:34 a.m. Dec 03, 1998 Eastern By Brian Killen MOSCOW, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Russian State Duma (lower chamber of parliament) speaker Gennady Seleznyov said on Thursday that the government should pay its debts to the International Monetary Fund and break free from the lending agency's shackles. ''I would settle accounts with the IMF and say 'thank you','' Seleznyov told reporters after a two-day visit to Moscow by IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus. ''We have to get these shackles off Russia's legs. ''Look how they are ridiculing our government. They are sending one group, then another, then a third one,'' Seleznyov said. ''Camdessus comes. And that's it -- wait until tomorrow.'' Russia has no money to repay the IMF and is struggling to service its foreign debt, $17.5 billion of which is due in 1999. The Russian media put a generally pessimistic spin on the talks between Camdessus and Prime Minister Yevegeny Primakov, which ended on Wednesday with an exchange of compliments, statements on mutual understanding and pledges to work together. Camdessus made clear that there would be no credits until after an IMF mission returns to Moscow in January to study policies that would be the basis for future support. The Izvestia daily said relations with the IMF were at least alive following this week's diplomacy, but another newspaper, Sevodnya, described possible IMF credits as ''corpses.'' The IMF withheld a $4.3 billion loan tranche for Russia, which had been due in September, after the policy programme underpinning the credits was derailed by financial crisis and a new government with different ideas came to power. The Fund wants evidence that the government is committed to fiscal discipline and structural reforms, although Primakov and First Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Maslyukov have stressed socially oriented policies and state control of the economy. President Boris Yeltsin has issued a resolution approving Maslyukov as head of an inter-departmental commission responsible for relations with international financial organisations, RIA news agency reported. This role was previously carried out by Viktor Khristenko, a liberal deputy finance minister. The IMF appears to be in a dilemma over its policy towards Russia. On the one hand it would like to help the vast nuclear power from sliding into deeper crisis, but it does not want to provide credits to back policies which it has doubts over. IMF First Deputy Managing Director Stanley Fischer invited a group of Russia experts to Washington earlier this week to a ''brain-storming'' session on what should be done. Russia's deputy director at the IMF, Andrei Lushin, told the Kommersant business daily that no new ideas were expressed. The participants said Russia had to restructure its foreign debt, but no one favoured giving Russia more money, he said. ''Several speakers argued that giving money to Russia would only make the situation worse and not better, because the Russian authorities would lose the will to carry out reforms.'' Lushin added that there was a lot of talk about corruption in Russia. ''They drew attention to capital flight continuing, which means there would be no sense in giving money. ''In the present situation, the way things have turned out, the IMF will not give any money,'' he said, adding that a new programme with the Fund had to be worked out. Another participant at the meeting, political expert Peter Reddaway, also opposed IMF financial help, telling Kommersant it would be squandered or stolen. ''The Russian government has still not formulated a coherent economic programme,'' he said. Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.